Welcome to another episode of ADHD-ish! In this thought-provoking conversation, host Diann Wingert is joined by neurodivergent leadership coach Ron Sosa for an in-depth conversation on neurodiversity, intersectionality, and authenticity. 

Together, they explore the complex ways our overlapping identities, including neurodivergence, sexuality, race, and disability, shape how we experience the world and present ourselves to others. 

Ron shares his personal journey navigating multiple identities, including being a white, gay, hard-of-hearing man with both ADHD and autism, and opens up about the nuanced decisions behind which identities he chooses to “lead with” in different settings.

The episode delves into real-life challenges like masking, passing, and code-switching, examining how these adaptive behaviors can be both empowering and exhausting—depending on whether they’re chosen or enforced out of necessity. 

Diann and Ron discuss the complicated layer of “family secrets”, the constant mental calculations neurodivergent and marginalized individuals make around safety and acceptance, and offer powerful insights about reclaiming agency in how we self-identify. 

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• How Identities Stack and Interact: Ron walks us through how he thinks about and organizes his different identities—ADHD, autistic, white male, gay, and hard of hearing—and the personal and social factors that influence which aspects he shares in different situations.
• Navigating Safety and Disclosure: The conversation highlights the calculation involved in deciding which identity to disclose, considering factors like safety, context, and anticipated reactions from others.
• Invisible and Visible Disabilities: Ron shares honest experiences about masking, particularly with his hearing impairment, and the additional challenges posed by disabilities that are not immediately visible.
• Masking as Tool vs. Survival Mechanism: Diann and Ron discuss the difference between masking as a conscious, empowering choice and masking as a depleting necessity, including how the need to “pass” or “camouflage” can both protect and exhaust someone with multiple marginalized identities.
• Passing, Code-Switching, and Camouflage: The benefits and drawbacks of being able to “pass” in certain environments, including the emotional toll and moments of empowerment when one can choose how and when to reveal their authentic self.

Guest Bio:

Ron Sosa is a neurodivergent, gay, hard-of-hearing leader who has walked unconventional paths through veterinary medicine, coaching, and leadership development. From the client service desk to executive roles, his story isn’t linear, and that's a testament to resilience, reinvention, and radical empathy.

Too many leaders feel like they’re wearing a mask and are exhausted from trying to fit into outdated expectations. They’re stuck managing overwhelm, struggling with conflict, and questioning whether they belong in leadership at all. They are not broken; the system is. Ron helps leaders unlearn what leadership “should” look like and rebuild from a place of clarity, confidence, and alignment with their neurotype, values, and rhythm through Syn-APT Neuroinclusive Leadership.

Find Ron Sosa online:

Website  -  LinkedIn 

Mentioned during the episode:

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' Stages of Grief model

The movie “Rainman” & how our views of autism have changed 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Can’t get enough of insights from other neurodivergent experts? 

Join Meredith Carder, Jesse J Anderson, Tayla Blair, Alice Draper and me for a FREE live roundtable discussion on “Visibility & Branding with ADHD” - October 15th at 9 AM Pacific/ 12 PM Eastern. 

Register NOW to attend LIVE or watch the replay! 

Ever wish you had been diagnosed with ADHD sooner? Want to open up a conversation about ADHD with your daughter, mother, or niece?  Get your FREE copy of “Letters to My Younger Self” (22 letters from ADHD experts, including ME!)  https://findtheadhdgirls.org/repository/

© 2025 ADHD-ish Podcast. Intro music by Ishan Dincer / Melody Loops  / Outro music by Vladimir /  Bobi Music / All rights reserved. 

H: Ron, thank you so much for agreeing to have this conversation with me. I have been looking forward to this because I think we both like complex topics and things that are nuanced and multi layered. And when I think about ADHD and intersectionality, you were one of the first people in my network that came to mind because of the different identities that you hold and the way they shape the way you think, feel, perceive and interact with the world. So how do you organize them even in your own mind before sharing with others?

G: Yeah. Well, number one, thanks for having me. And I absolutely love this topic because it is so nuanced and I absolutely do love digging into really deep, complex topics. I think it's an interesting question because my brain immediately goes to how does society typically present identities right. Like, you know, I'm of the AOL chat room days where it's like I am 20 white male and my brain immediately goes to that kind of format. But if you ask me what I want to lead with, it's an interesting question because it brings up more like what do I want people to see for my identity or what do I want? It's a very interesting thing.

But I think what I tend to lead with, and I think it's because of being an advocate in the neurodiversity space, is the ADHD and the autistic because it's what I talk about the most. Probably the next identity would be the fact that I'm a white male. I talk about that all the time and talk about the privilege that it carries around. And then after that is probably being a gay man. And then after that, probably hard of hearing because that is a small. That's a part of me I don't really talk about too much is those last two identities, but it is definitely a part of me and it has shapes my world.

H: I think one of the reasons why it's a difficult question to answer and we chatted briefly before heading record, is that how we identify ourselves to ourselves and then how we want other people to identify us. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that some of your identities, there are safety issues.

G: Yeah.

H: That, you know, are there things there are places it's probably not so safe anymore to say I'm a white male, even if that wasn't obvious. Or I am a gay white male or I have autism and adhd. It's like we can't help but run things through an internal filter before we share them with others based on how we think they are going to interpret them, feel about them and respond to them and I hate that. I hate that for us.

G: Yeah. I think the story that is common for me is the hard of hearing piece. And I don't know, maybe the clash of ADHD and autism is there's that auditory processing that happens where I can hear the thing, but there's like a delayed interpretation. If you've ever watched like a subtitled movie or when you're in the auto dealership waiting for your car to get serviced, you have the closed captions on the news, but there's delayed between what is being said, what the text comes up.

So there's like this delay in I heard you and then actually getting to my brain what the words actually were and so there's that complex moment. There's the complex moment of the working memory issue, or I may have been distracted paying attention to something else I was focused on, or there was too much background noise of the TV going on and this conversation over there to really pay attention to all of the words and the meanings behind it. And then the other part of it of just having hard of hearing, where I have reduced hearing in my left is very, very low and I've got some reduced hearing in the right.

I don't always wear my hearing aids cause there's additional shame on visible disabilities. And so I think that's the complexity and how I show the world when that happens. When the like, oh, what did you say? And how I have to explain why I continually say what is based on the audience that I'm in front of the room in front of me. Is it safer to say I have a hearing disability or is it safer to say I have ADHD and autism and I may not have been fully present with you. What is more acceptable to the person I'm talking to in that moment or the group I'm talking to in that moment.

H: And because you're a deep, complex, nuanced, intersectional thinker, it might take you a couple of seconds to assess what is the safest way for me to respond, which could create additional communication difficulties. Because you're literally staring at somebody trying to figure out what's the best way for me to explain what just happened and they're thinking, what's going on with this guy?

G: Well, I think that's the part of the hidden side of the disability of being of multiple marginalized groups is that you're constantly having to evaluate who you're in front of and what is safe to say and what is not safe to say. And I think, like being a gay man, that is, like, forefront, probably more so, of the identity that I hide first and is it safe to be who I am as a gay man first? And then I think the other identities slowly come afterwards, which is interesting because I tend to put that identity later on, but it's the first I lead with in safety.

H: That makes sense, Ron. Especially now.

G: Yeah.

H: And let's talk about passing, because I think passing is obviously intimately related to this. One of my very, very good friends often says, I think I'm straight passing. And I said, do you consider that a flex? He said, I consider it camouflage and so it's like for him, too. And I think he would probably be considered straight passing. I think for most people, he said it makes his life easier in immeasurable ways because he doesn't have to check himself so much according to the environment that he's in. And the first time we talked about this, I thought, oh, my God, that sounds exhausting. So masking, even though I don't know, there's a lot of conversation around masking.

People are saying, oh, I spent all these years masking, and now all I want to do is just rip off the mask. I think a mask can be a tool. Now, if we feel like we have no choice about it, if we feel like it is absolutely mandatory for us to mask at all times, to have any chance of acceptance, fitting in, belonging, being hired, being dated, getting a place to live, all of that, then that is extremely unfortunate and disabling. But if it's a tool like a filter you could put on and take off when it suits you, and maybe there's some serviceability to it. What is your relationship with masking?

G: Yeah, I think that there's importance in what you said is that tool. You can use it as a tool because that's more empowering. If you're making this decision to put a mask on or to code switch or to pass as another identity, I think that there's real empowerment in doing that as a decision that I or someone has made, rather than I have to be straight passing because I'm afraid for my job, or I have to fit into the environment because I live in the Southeast and it's not so safe in all these areas and so that's really depleting. And I know, when I talk about masking and code switching and all of the other words, camouflaging, contortion, I think that the difference is, is it empowering or is it depleting?

And at the end of the day, whatever the scenario is, if it's depleting, you know that means it's a safety call, right? So I'm not feeling safe in this space and it's taking energy away from me by having to keep it up. Where if it's empowering, it means I've done it on purpose. Maybe I've taken that mask off or I've opened my identity to someone and it's just more empowering moment. Or maybe I haven't because I'm empowered to do what it is I need to do for the outcome rather than having to do it as a default necessity.

H: So what I find myself wondering about with that, Ron, is do you think all of us, all neurodivergent people, and of course this is speculative. Do you think each of us has the ability to choose when to mask and unmask?

G: While it's a great concept, I don't think many people even recognize when they're masking or not masking, because it's been that mask is so ingrained at probably such a young age. At least for me and the clients that I work with, like, they, they didn't even recognize it. They don't see it until we start to work on really, really deep reflection. And so I do think it's like the same thing as, like, ADHD is a superpower, right? It's the concept is wonderful and empowering, but until you do the work to get to that point, I don't actually think it's possible. And I think it's really hard to do on your own because you need a mirror in front of you.

H: It can also be really offensive to untold numbers of people who not only are not there, literally cannot wrap their minds around the possibility that that could ever be a reality for them. And I love any kind of empowering language, and I want to be really cautious that it does not resonate with the lived experience of potentially millions of people that we might otherwise seek to connect with.

G: Yeah, it can be really damaging. And as much as I want people to feel empowered to your point, to walk around and say that to other people, it can be really hard. Because if I look at my life where I was 10 years ago and somebody telling me it's a superpower, when I was drowning in burnout and in a place where probably longer than that, where I was close to suicide or had at least, you know, thoughts of suicide, like, that's really hard to combat. And somebody going, no, it's my superpower like, that's and then it only creates more shame in the person that you're talking to. So I think it, while it's great for someone to feel like they have a superpower, I think that we need to be real about what it is for the greater good of the community.

H: I want to circle back a little bit to that specific intersectionalities that you are dealing with. Like, for example, at what age did you realize you were gay? And at what age did you realize, oh, that's not necessarily a good thing in the eyes of everybody else. At what point did you realize there's something different about the way I think and eventually real find out, realize it's ADHD and autism. Like, what was the order of those things and how did you start to layer them into the understanding of who you are and how you are?

G: Yeah, that's a deep question. If I try to go chronologically, I got a diagnosis of asd actually fairly young. My parents had divorced, there was court mandated therapy involved for me. And at I think the age of three is what my father said, I got the diagnosis of asd. Now, that being said, I never knew that growing up. So my father decided that doctor was a quack and he's like, my, you know, this is not who he sees me to be.

And so we went to another therapist and I don't know exactly what happened, I was too young. So that diagnosis kind of fell somewhere out of my life and never, never knew it. And so I only got that information after I got my second diagnosis in my late 30s. And then my father's like, by the way, you got that when you were three. But we thought the doctor was quite like, tells me the whole story and so, you know, like, mind blown.

H: Oh, my goodness.

G: I would say, like, looking backwards. I don't know if I knew I was gay probably until middle school or maybe late elementary school and it was only looking backwards.

H: Yeah.

G: Where I remember my parents flipping through movie night was Friday night, right. So HBO movie, 8pm like, the family gathered in front of the TV and I think it was like a movie we had all seen before. So the parents were flipping through and Showtime back then after 8pm was risque. And I remember, like they flipped through the channel and it was two men kissing. And I was super intrigued by it in like the flash of a moment. And it was like very much like, ew the whole family was very negative about the experience aut I had this weird, like, what was that?

I didn't know like, why can't you just kiss anybody? Like, why does that have to be a gendered thing and that's what was going through my mind as a kid. And so it's like kissing is just kissing. I don't understand the difference. And I think that there's been flashes of that through my childhood, growing up, but I don't think I really claimed my gay identity. Probably until high school, where it's like, okay, this is. There's definitely an attraction here this is not something that is just like, quote, unquote, a phase or and I hid it the entire time.

Like, I had a girlfriend in high school. I had a girlfriend early in college, like, just trying to choose to not be gay right. That's what you hear in that type of household is that it's a choice. So I think that identity came earlier on than I realized what it was. But really in high school is when I claimed it internally, the adhd. Looking back, I think, how did I not get a diagnosis? My parents would always say I was a child that bounced off all four walls, that was their words.

H: The classic description of a little boy with ADHD is bouncing off the freaking walls.

G: But the funny thing, it's that dichotomy of bouncing off of all four walls or crashing really hard and being quote, unquote, lazy, where it's like I was the lazy kid who would just lounge on the couch all day or just couldn't get up off the recliner because I didn't do my chores or whatever the thing was. So it was interesting, like, looking back at the all or nothing type of behavior. So I got the diagnosis about my early to mid 20s. I want to say I was about 25ish, but somewhere between 23 and 25, I got diagnosis of ADHD. And the reason why is I finally got a leadership position at work. And that low level of frustration that comes along with it was actually impacting how I led teams.

H: Wait, did you just say low level frustration?

G: Low level frustration, meaning, like, I get frustrated super easy.

H: Oh, low frustration tolerance, excuse me.

G: Yeah, you're right.

H: I'm thinking I got a high level of frustration. I don't know where you're coming from.

G: Yeah, the tolerance level was very, very low. And so I remember the moment where I yelled at my team and that was not who I wanted to. And, like, I could have split the Red Sea type of like, the team was quiet. I walked in the room, they just walked away. And it was not at all who I wanted to be. And so at the same time, I was having relationship problems with my now husband where he told me I had anger problems, and that was that. That frustration tolerance is really what became the crux of all of it and getting my diagnosis. So I like to say I went in for anger management and came out with an ADHD diagnosis.

H: Sounds like you were irritable AF because…

G: It was the stress level yeah, yeah.

H: And it eats up our capacity big time.

G: Really does.

H: Yeah.

G: Yeah. And so but I think getting my ADHD diagnosis, ADHD diagnosis was like diving into the rabbit hole of self discovery and like, I finally got the, you know, you hear people say I got the manual of life. I was like, okay. Things started to make sense about why I moved through the world. I did, why I thought the way I did, and I didn't really do a whole lot with it, but it started to explain things in my life. It was really when I got the ASD diagnosis that I was like, that's the whole world opened up. Was like, between all of the identities of going on, I just understood who I was, and now I could understand how I could make myself work in the world that wasn't built for me.

Like, I can start to break down some barriers even if they didn't understand it around me. I knew who I was, and I can stand tall in who I was. And I know that's not everybody's experience, but it was definitely one where I was like, there's validation here for me, and I can stand knowing that. And if people don't like it and it's still hard, the rejection's still hard of the things that happen. But there was a powerful moment in just that self discovery. I'm like, I'm not broken. I'm not this weird alien that I thought I was implanted into the earth.

H: Wearing, you know, an alien wearing a flesh suit okay so I have to go deeper into this, Ron, because. Yeah, you I love the way you describe it. You went for anger management and you came out with an ADHD diagnosis. And so many of our colleagues and peers and friends in this community say I got my ADHD diagnosis and then things started making sense. But you had a trigger for getting that diagnosis. You were having problems in your romantic relationship, obviously anger problems. There's only, you know, it's really hard to be around. It must have been stressful for both of you. But then what prompted you to get an autism diagnosis because it was some years in between right.

G: Yeah. I never in the life of me sought it out. I had a psychiatrist that I was going to. I did the medical management for quite a while. I tried to take that, and what scaffolding and supports could I put in for myself so I don't have to take meds? And then I got to a point where I would take my medication on days that I knew would be really stressful for me. So the weekends were off, and it was like, if I've got a really rough day that I know ahead of time, I'm probably going to take my medication that day with the approval of the doctor and being able to do that.

And I was in what I called, like, the boardroom, the war room, every day going, what are the updates with this? What do I have to do? And it was exhausting and draining being everything to everyone all the time in my own business. And my business partner, who was a veterinarian, that was not his forte. He didn't want to manage the business. He didn't want to deal with that part of it. So now I've got a business of 105 employees across six businesses trying to make it work for everyone right.

And then that constant rejection of, like, I want this person to wear a mask, they're not wearing a mask. They're putting it underneath their nose like that constant like, oh, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that can I just, like, not work? And trying to figure out, like, well, you're only going to work 20 hours a week, and the other 20 hours a week, I need you to just do some CE certifications that you can do so I can continue to pay you. But that wasn't good for some people. It was just, it was a lot.

H: It's the level of problem solving and combined with the level of emotional labor. It's like, oh, my God, I'm just as I'm hearing this, and, man, we needed veterinarians during the pandemic and we could not access them. The industry of veterinary medicine has been profoundly changed as a result of the pandemic. So the stress levels in the early part of that, I can't even imagine. So many practices closed, I mean, it was really, really hard. We actually lost one of our dogs because we could not access a veterinary professional in time.

G: Yeah.

H: But for you to be making all those decisions and having to deal with all the people having all their extra emotions to deal with. Oh, my goodness. That's so overwhelmed.

G: I wound up in a space where I told my husband, if I don't go and get this taken care of, I need to go back to psychiatrist because I'm at a point of total burnout. And I'm afraid, like, I'm in veterinary medicine, suicide rate is high. I'd already had, you know, thoughts of it early in my life, and I was scared that I could go down that rabbit hole of God forbid and so I wanted to be proactive about it.

And I went back to the psychiatrist, which was really hard to get into back then because everybody was seeing a psychiatrist as well, with mental health decline during the pandemic. And so I finally got in, and it was the same psychiatrist I've seen for many times. And I remember this so clearly, he says, are you ready for the truth yet? And I'm just like, if you know me, I like to throw the kitchen sink at the problem. So I don't understand why you would ask me that question.

H: Are you ready for the truth? I would have been so insulted like, do you know me, sir?

G: I know, like, we've been seeing each other for years. I haven't seen you in, like, six or eight months or so. But I was like, we've been seeing each other for years so I'm like, okay, this is interesting. Like, yes, give it to me like, tell me what's going on with me. I was and I'm waiting for him to tell me I needed to be committed right or, like, go to the hospital. This is what I'm waiting for. And then he's like, I really have a big suspicion that you are autistic. Like, you told me about your family. I had an uncle who is autistic and so anyway, he's like, I really have a strong suspicion. I don't feel comfortable making this diagnosis for you, but I'd like you to see if you can find someone who specializes in adult diagnosis and I never found that right.

But I think that was enough for me to go down the rabbit hole and prove him wrong, which is my initial. I'm gonna prove this doctor wrong, I know enough about medicine. I know what the textbooks are. I'm going to read all about it, and I'm going to prove it, and I'm going to tell him all the hundred ways he's wrong. And what I found was, like, profoundly mirrored back to me who I was and it was interesting. It took me two years to tell my father that story.

And then he dropped the bomb of, no, you got that diagnosis when you were three. And I think that if we talk about intersectionality, I think that the fact that I came out of the closet and I was rejected by my family and all of the things that go along with that, I think that that statement unfortunately didn't hit me that way. It was just kind of like, this is who my father is. And it doesn't surprise me, but, man, I would have loved to have known this earlier on.

H: So you were able to bypass the rage and the hurt and the betrayal.

G: Hurt was there, but like, yeah, the rage wasn't there.

H: Because you'd already gone down that road being rejected when you came out. And you had to do all the reparative, restorative work to accept yourself, whether dad ever gets there or not. So when this came out, it's like, okay, yeah, it's him after all.

G: Yeah, it was exactly that. It was like, that is just a reinforcement of, this is who my father is and that will never change which is fine. I've come to accept him for who he is. He's come to accept that I am who I am, who is setting boundaries. He doesn't necessarily accept the quote, unquote, lifestyle. I hate that word, but that's what he says and so we just I hate to say it, we have very superficial relationship at this point. Like, we talk, we're friendly, we'll never get into deep conversation right.

He's wonderful grandfather to my kids, way better than he was a father for me but, you know, I just come to accept that. So, no, I didn't have that life shattering moment of like, rage. There was a lot of I think there was grief for who I thought I was and who I thought I could be. Which is weird because I don't think it really changed anything, but in your mind, I think you have this idea of who you are, and when that shatters, there's a bit of grief that happens with like, oh, I'm not who I thought I was.

H: That is so relatable, my friend, because something we haven't discussed yet, or maybe we did and I don't remember it. That's always fun, is that I'm adopted and that's one of my intersectionalities. And I was not told because my parents, parents that adopted me, saw that as shameful because during the years that I was born, the only people that were adopted were the illegitimate kids of people who didn't want them. And the only people who did the adopting were people who had trouble having their own kids and that was shameful in both ways.

So yeah, even though my adoptive mother, who's now deceased, is like 5 foot 4, curvy and has brown hair and brown curly hair and blue eyes and I'm like almost six feet tall and look like a Viking. So it's there's just no way that was going to be. But they didn't tell me and I actually found out, the neighbors spilled the beans and I was nine years old. So just, you know, like you like realizing, oh, wow, I wonder what would have happened if I would have known this about myself earlier.

It can be kind of a form of non finite grief where we're not able to go through the Elizabeth Kubler Ross model of, you know, your five stages and you kind of accept and move on, but like, it just kind of keeps coming up and cycling through as you go through different phases of your life and think, I wonder what it would have been like if I had known. So for you realizing, wow, you could have grown up with the knowledge that you are on the spectrum and didn't find out until much, much later, where you stand now and again, these things are just dynamic and fluid and evolving. Do you think it would have served you to know sooner or do you think that might have been a burden for you to know sooner or both.

G: Maybe this is the idealistic world in me coming out, but I have…

H: I love that about you though. You're idealistic, it's very charming.

G: I have historically, I think, used all of my hiccups in life. All of the trials and tribulations in life I have used as fuel to move me forward because of that moment of suicide in my past. Like, I've had to take it and go, I can do that or I can move forward, right? Like there was a moment I remember of like, that's the option. I really don't like the thought of that. Or I can move forward and use this so that I never have to be in this position again. And I feel like I use that every time I go through turmoil in my life. I think I need to work differently, harder, whatever, so that I don't experience this anymore. And maybe that's part of the mask that I'm just now thinking about. But it's, I don't want to go through this again so I'm going to work that much harder, that much different so I don't experience it again.

H: I am so fascinated with this, Ron. And I'm really, really grateful that you are showing up for this, like all of our conversations in such a vulnerable and authentic way, because being able to be at the lowest point a human can be and saying, I don't want this existence. I would rather not exist than live the way I'm living, and then using that to kind of draw a line in the sand for yourself and say, this is unacceptable. And I think this is where identity may come in, is that this is an unacceptable outcome, choice, action, option for me. I am not the person, I don't choose to be the person who would accept that choice as acceptable. So I am rejecting that option now and forever. I will never let myself reach the point where that is even on the menu. So I need to become the person for whom that is never going to be a choice or a challenge for me again and that is powerful.

G: Well, for me now it has become like a Pavlovian response where if I start to feel a dip in that mental health, it's like, okay, I need to do something different. Like there's this, and it sounds noble and it doesn't feel noble in the moment, it feels like a moment of panic.

H: It's self preservation.

G: 100% self preservation can't happen, and I need to do something about it. And the problem, the flip side of that, right, the con of that, and there's pros and cons, and the con is I have less, and I'll be vulnerably honest here, I have less tolerance for people who wallow because I have that response of panic. I need to do something different and I'm like, why can't you have that moment for yourself? I have a harder time empathetically, you know, seeing people wallow and continue to wallow rather than actually take action.

H: It's probably been one of the most perplexing things of my life of trying to figure out why people can go through the same experiences. And some of them experience post traumatic growth and they are resilient AF and others the majority can't ever go there. I think it's far too complex, certainly beyond the scope of this conversation, but I would think, well, I'm dealing with it, why aren't you? And that's, that's a massive, massive blind spot and bias.

G: Yeah, there's something powerful in saying that. I went through this really hard time in my life, so I know I can get through other hard times. I don't know what it is and so if I know I can be at my lowest point in the world and I know I can get through whatever the next hard thing is, you know, I've gone through times of poverty in the sense, like, I didn't know where I was going to come up for money for rent, or do I need to choose between rent and food when I was early in my career and I remember, I will live with nothing.

Like, I don't need tv, I don't need anything. And I talk with friends who have been in that same situation, they just can't part with their luxuries and I'm like, just part with your luxuries. Just get out of it instead of complaining about it. So it's definitely a hard thing to tolerate watching someone and I get it. There's a window for me where it's like, I get it, I understand it. We have to go through this emotional tunnel. But if you can't the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't at some point I have to leave you behind.

H: I can't be your light, because at some point you're going to need to, we're going to need to part ways and you know, if you are a good coach or a good therapist or any kind of good helper, you really should not be trying to cultivate dependencies. A growing number of people are realizing, hey, I'm not just adhd, I'm autistic. In fact, I think the number of people who are now identifying as audi HD seems to be growing maybe even faster than the number of people who are realizing their adhd. Do you think it would have been possible for you to have figured the autism out on your own?

G: I don't and I say that because looking backwards in my life, the avatar all around us, right. Media books was it's the like 3 to 5 year old boy sitting in a corner having temper tantrums, rocking, clapping, never who I, that's never who I saw myself as. And that was immediately, that was why I tried to my brain went immediate to the psychiatrist and go, I'm going to prove them wrong because this is the picture I have in my head.

H: Yeah.

G: And, and so yeah, I don't think so. I think that there is a gratefulness on one hand for the amount of awareness that is being brought out on social media but is also on the double edged, sort of really dangerous information out there because it's misinformation or it's somebody's experience that is not the whole experience. And so that's the tricky part is like great awareness but also damaging in ways as well.

H: Yeah. We had a conversation about this earlier in the week and this actually something that I posted online, you know something that said a lot is if you've been through a lot in life, you either become, you know, completely self absorbed and cut off from others and it's kind of like I'm just taking care of myself and everybody else can fuck off or you become really empathetic and high levels of empathy and concern with others, rejection sensitivity, justice sensitivity are highly idealism. A lot of these things are correlated with folks that are neurodivergent. Do you identify with these things and do you believe that's their source for you?

G: Hmm, that's tricky.

H: I know. You know I love questions, I love going to the deep end of the pool.

G: I think that there is this is not everybody's experience. But I think that there is a level of greater empathy when you realize that you're in a marginalized identity. Because I don't want anyone to feel the way I have been, I felt by someone else. And so I do think for me I have created or created is not the right word. But I have a deeper level of empathy for anyone. I have more tolerance for a behavior, for language, for certain things because I don't know what their identities are. I don't know what they've been through and I don't, I genuinely don't believe that people are out there trying to hurt others. I think that we're all in it for ourselves in a lot of ways.

Like if I think about the hierarchy of needs, which I know is not necessarily, it's kind of been debunked, but like if I had to name the hierarchy of needs of the human being, the self comes first, right? Like that self, you said it earlier that oh goodness. But like the need to protect and survive. And so I think that that is a core thing that people go through. And so I think about that when I have somebody who even is oppressing me in a way is I have a lot of empathy for like who are they? What experience have they been through? What have they been taught? Like they just don't know. There's a lot more openness and although I can be upset and wish them that they could be more open minded, there is this level of empathy I still have for even my oppressors.

H: It reminds me of scenes in courtrooms where victims families or have the opportunity to communicate to the person who's killed their loved one. Or, and those are some of the most powerful transformations of human beings that we might ever witness is just the power of forgiveness and the power of empathy and the power of saying I couldn't possibly know what this other person's experience is or why they think, the way they do or make the choices they make, or the actions they take, that is not my role. I think the teachings of mindfulness are so incredibly helpful to this just open, curious and non judgmental.

That is, you know what, I aspire to be more mindful every day and to just recognize no matter how smart you are, no matter how wise you are, no matter how experienced you are, no matter how much training you have in human nature, you couldn't possibly know everything you need to know about what a person is going through. And you know, I don't necessarily think I'm a humble person by nature but I aspire to be more humble. I aspire to say I don't know much more comfortably, much more often.

G: Yeah, I think I try to have my default answer is I don't know what I don't know. So, like, I try to lead that way. I just don't know what I don't and so with the right people, you can get curious.

H: Ooh, that's a quotable. That's almost a mic drop moment. But I'm not quite finished with you yet. I really like that and I also think you probably like one of my favorite slogans, which is, it depends.

G: It depends. That is my that's like every answer I have in leadership at any given time. When people ask me a leadership question, like, it depends.

H: Yeah, it really does. Because I think, you know, it's I've been accused of making things too complicated and I think you can relate. I prefer to think that I and I credit my neurodivergence to this. I'd credit this to my neurodivergence is that I don't think I make things more complicated. I think I have the ability to recognize the inherent complexity in things.

G: Yes.

H: But when you are talking to someone else who doesn't perceive things that way, they're like, why, you know, why do you have so many questions? Why do you have to know everything? Why are you making this so complicated? And I think, yeah, that I don't really consider it a burden, but I can see why other people might find it really hard to relate to. So it depends if it's a good test. When I say it depends, if they say, well, like, what would it depend on? Okay, now I have permission to proceed. Otherwise, if they get frustrated when I say it depends, then I know they're looking for the most reductionist answer because that's what their brain can tolerate.

So I know we agree that being neurodivergent is not a superpower and why that is. But you might believe I haven't asked you. I'm about to ask you. You might believe that there are certain advantages to being neurodivergent as a business owner. And If I wasn't like you, if I was neurotypical, and you would have just told me I'm autistic and have adhd, and I think, is there anything good about that? Is there any advantage to that in business that maybe I don't have as a neurotypical person? What would you tell me?

G: It depends.

H: I should have seen that coming.

G: But I think to elaborate on, it depends. I think it depends on the person right. So when we think about neurodivergence and we think about the human condition as a whole, no two people are the same. And so you can have 2, 3, 100 autistic people, 100 ADHD people next to each other, and neither one of them are going to present the same and have the same skills, the same strengths and weaknesses. I think the strengths and weaknesses, in my opinion, I see that they are. I have a higher strength in efficiency and work output, but also on the downside of that, what comes with that is a lower weakness of that executive function where it's like, I will crash and I'm not a good father, I'm not a good husband, I'm not a good coworker.

For several days after that output was high. And the funny thing is, if you start to look at timelines, I can probably get the same work that people do in 40 hours a week in a day or day and a half, but then the rest of the three and a half days, I do the bare minimum to get me by, which is very interesting. So I love that for me, working in a salaried position or working for myself is way more productive for me than a structured. You need to work so many hours because it doesn't actually work in my benefit.

H: I really like that as well and that you're aware of it, because I think when we are passing, when we are masking, when we are trying to what I call conflict, conform to the norm, you would just be taking up space in an office for two thirds of the time you're there trying to look busy.

G: Yes.

H: For the sake of the rest of the time, when you actually would be busy and getting everything for the week done in that amount of time. It's probably one of the reasons why so many of us become entrepreneurs.

G: Yeah. Well, the funny thing is, again, it has its cons where it's like, how come no one else can get this level of work done in such a small period of time?

H: It can be a little touchy during those times. Yes, true that.

G: But yeah, so I think that there are things like that like I very high output. I think that has to do with the hyper focus. But the cons are I probably skip bathroom breaks, I probably skip meals, I crash at the end. So there's like higher spikes in the profile of like, here's my strength and my weaknesses down here, rather than being a sort of well rounded person of normativity.

H: Okay, last question for you, because you know how we are, we could just keep on going. I think about it as the fly zone, Ron. Like creating my own personal fly zone. Like, when I'm in my fly zone, I'm in my zone of tolerance. If I'm above it, I'm stressed out and I'm beyond my capacity. I'm probably very symptomatic and I'm also probably no fun to be around. If I'm below my fly zone, I'm probably exhausted, burned out, maybe depressed, really just unable to do anything.

So trying to figure out how to get in and stay in my fly zone and how long I can stay there by avoiding the things that push me above or below. But it sounds like for you, like you, it's not about creating consistency so much as taking advantage of the different modes of functioning that you have and then just maybe trying to eliminate the extremes at both ends so that you can stay more in the middle.

G: I think about it as finding a rhythm that works for me right? Like, for me, I will have high output and then I'm okay having high output and low low right. Because it works with the way I've been able to situate it through my week, it works well. But I think that, you know, everybody has their own rhythm. Like, if, if you do better in a fly zone that way, then go for it. I think that this is, maybe this is too honest to say, but I think that there is some thrill seeking a little bit in flying above and flying below right. Like, there's a little bit of, like, I want to go against the grain of the system in the world. And so I'm going to fly above and I'm going to fly below and I'm okay with that.

H: I totally relate to that. So funny that you said that because it's like some people call it risk taking, but I kind of think of it as pushing the envelope, riding the edge, and what can I get away with? I don't do this anymore. But years ago I would see how far I could get on an empty gas tank without breaking down by the side of the road. And I, you know, it's like that, you know, not something to be recommended, but like. Or just stacking my day so full that in order to do all the things that I had committed to doing, there would have to be no traffic, no distractions, no interruptions, no lines anywhere and then basically seeing what I could get away with. Not in an illegal criminal sense, but just, like, pushing against limits.

G: Yeah.

H: Very intentionally and because it was very exciting to me to do so. And, you know, we're now at a different stage of our life. We've got responsibilities. I mean, people come to us for help wo we are not trying.

G: Still testing some boundaries.

H: We're not. Well, probably in a way that the consequences are more tolerable for grownups. What a delightful conversation, my friend.

G: Well, here's my question for you.

H: Yes.

G: What is the percentage of your battery on your phone right now? Are you the 2% battery left or are you the 85% battery left?

H: You know what? I think I'm going to get a gold star on this one because I turned my phone off so that we wouldn't be interrupted for this conversation and ba bam.

G: Love it, that's great. I definitely like when you started to talk about the gas in the tank. I was like, oh, I know the people who run that on their phones where every time I talk to them, they're like, I have 5% battery left. I'm like, I don't know how you live that life. That's a little too scary for me. I am the 85% once it hits 60, I'm like, charging it. Well, you do remember that's a risk I don't want.

H: Yeah, you do remember. We'll let everybody else know as we're wrapping up that I had to go and get my charging cord right before we started.

G: Yes, you did. That's right.

H: I'm just outing myself here because I had a previous interview that I scheduled before this one, and I thought that I could be in this room, which is better for sound, without the cable for two consecutive hours and then I realized I can't. So, you know okay, now you know, now you know everything, I have no more secrets. Thanks, Ron, appreciate your help exposing all this.